Veterinary Equine Dentistry

Your horse’s teeth can often be overlooked when it comes to horse care. Routine dentistry is of paramount importance in the health care of your horse. There are many reasons for having your horse’s teeth checked on a regular basis.

A thorough routine dental examination will involve the assessment of the teeth and surrounding soft tissue structures. This will involve the use of a full mouth speculum and a specialised light source.

Due to the complexity of the examination, and for the safety of the horse and handler, all horses are sedated for routine dental procedures. A careful and complete oral examination is critical in the diagnosis of dental pathology and the planning of dental corrective procedures.

Some of these corrective procedures may include the reduction of sharp enamel points and the balancing of the dental arcades. Further investigation and treatment of abnormalities that are or may result in dental disease.

A general rule is to have your horses teeth examined annually unless you have been advised otherwise, with some horses requiring 3 to 6 monthly assessments.

Sharp teeth can be a source of pain and in turn lead to mouth ulcers, difficulty in eating and loss of weight. Sharp teeth can also lead to a reluctance to accept the bit and cause a horse to misbehave whilst under saddle.

Horse feed is expensive, so why not maximise the efficiency of this feed. To do so your horse needs to be able to use its teeth correctly to reduce feed to a size that the gut can process effectively.

Equine dentistry is a rapidly expanding area of horse care. There are many different people offering this care. In Queensland equine dentistry is not restricted to vets only. However, the use of sedatives and pain relief is restricted by law to veterinary surgeons only. Further to this, insured horses are often not covered for any accidental damage sustained whilst having teeth done by dentists who are not veterinary surgeons.

At Chinchilla Vet Services we are able to provide a full range of dental services for horses. We utilise both motorised and non motorised state of the art dental equipment allowing for the flexibility in the treatment of a wide range of conditions.

Our motorised equipment consists of a “Powerfloat” which is the latest in motorised dental tools. Such equipment is designed to improve the efficiency of equine dentistry and correct problems without prolonging the time your horse needs to stand with its mouth open.